Lamentation (The Mourning of Christ)

Giotto’s masterful composition keeps the viewer focused on the dead Christ’s face and the interaction between him and Mary while at the same time creating a radical sense of space in a rather shallow setting. Giotto depicts two disciples in the foreground with their backs to the viewer, and the central figures to the right with bent backs rise to the disciple who flings his arms behind him in a state of grief. He points to the group of mourners on the other side, unifying the crowd. The circular group of people emphasizes Christ’s horizontal body, and the radically foreshortened angels in the sky echo the earthly circular formation below. 

The artist’s treatment of human emotion is realistic and powerful, as body language and facial expression convey both the outcry of anguish and the stolid presence of grief. This innovative sense of composition and a sculptural approach to the human figure, conveying gravity and weight, made Giotto’s work both the pinnacle of Late Gothic work and an important influence upon the Renaissance.

In the 1500s artist and historian Vasari described Giotto as being a forerunner of the Renaissance, “introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years.”

This Late Gothic fresco depicts the mourning of Christ, as he is cradled by his mother who looks closely into his face, while Mary Magdalene holds his feet, and other shrouded mourners surround him. To the right, two apostles stand beside a stone wall that creates a diagonal that separates the human scene from the blue sky, where a multitude of angels flies, their wings and postures conveying divine distress. Other disciples stand at the left, one bending forward, the other with his face in his hands. 

This fresco is in the  Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua, Italy